Below is my final reflection paper on my trip.  This was a tough exercise because for the first time ever I was writing to an audience more familiar with Buddhism than Christianity.  So it might read a bit woodenly, and grossly stereotypical, but I found this to be my only recourse when discussing two traditions with such limited common experience/language.  I'm afraid the figures didn't come through either, which is a shame, but hopefully my descriptions will suffice.  In any case, enjoy and feel free to shoot me any thoughts.  Namaste and blessings friends!

Stuck in the Middle with You 

The middle, by definition, is between poles.  In its simplest form, the middle is between just two poles.  My personal experience has led me to believe that two-point polarity is the only simple thing religious traditions do.  Any particular tradition’s middle tends to be defined in this simplest form – one dimensionally (Christian middles are between Christian denominations, Buddhist middles between Buddhist schools).  Christianity's middle was initially between Sinai and Bethlehem, but through integration of the Gentiles “the middle” was recentered between the Mt of Olives and Mt Olympus.  Later the center found itself between Constantinople and Rome.  Most recently, those who claim to be "the middle way" reside between Rome and Wittenberg (Anglicanism is known as the middle way in Christian Reformation history thanks to Elizabeth’s compromise between Roman ritual and Protestant piety).  From my limited exposure, I sense Buddhism has its own roaming middle.  First it stood between Lord Krishna and Mahavira.  As time passed the poles kept moving, Theravada to Mahayana to Vajrayana.  It even appears that there is a middle way to the Middle Way, Madhyamaka, and this middle way has poles at Prasangika and Yogācāra-Svatantrika-Mādhyamaka.  My point is that “the middle” is a dynamic entity, and any group, which adopts the title of “Middle Way,” should be weary about unpacking its bags. 

One dimension of expression has been the norm for defining religious middles, but occasionally coordinate systems becomes unable to cope with new data, and a single axis is no longer sufficient to express "the middle."  A quick geometry review can illustrate what I'm talking about:

 

1

-1

0

2

2

4

0

1

0

 

 

 

Traditional definition of the middle appears as above.  As poles shift so does the middle.  All definitions of middle are determined on one axis.  However, interaction with other cultures sometimes bring on dimensions that cannot be plotted on the current axis alone.  One culture functions according to the x-axis while another uses the y-axis.

 

 

 

When significantly different cultures come into contact, neither culture’s previous middle, (0,1) or (1,0) is able to lay sole claim to a composite middle (1,1).  Relatively speaking, the new middle may still only be one unit away from its poles, but compositely speaking, the new middle is now roughly 1.41 units away from any pole (D[1]).  The point being, with each new dimension considered, the composite middle changes, and no one axial view can claim their middle as identical with composite middle.

I say all of this because I feel like globalization has upset religious coordinate systems worldwide.  As an Episcopalian I feel like I stand in the middle of the Christian axis (y-axis).  And this trip has shown me that the Rangshung Yeshe Institute considers itself near the middle of the Buddhist axis (x-axis).  However, over the course of seven weeks it has become apparent to me that neither one of our middles seem fully capable of articulating a new, composite middle.  This paper is the rather awkward attempt to catch a glimpse of this composite middle.  I seek this new middle in coarse terms, by attempting to balance Buddhist and Christian axes with regard to human nature, the nature of justice and the nature of knowledge.  My following comments are simple observations and meager evaluations.  All is not equal.  In some respects Christians have a much longer way to go to find the new middle, and in other respects Buddhists seem to have a lengthier road.

I would like to begin by introducing “Buddha nature” and “original ignorance” to “image of God” and “original sin.”  The new middle of human nature probably lies east of Eden and west of the Pure Land.  In this respect, I believe Christians have a longer trip to the new middle.  When the Buddhist dimension is introduced to the Christian coordinate system, it becomes painfully obvious that Christians have skewed center in favor of the Fall.  Buddhists hold as primary the knowledge that all beings are Buddhas by nature, and potential Buddhahood lies buried in all of us.  Humans[2], by nature, are perfect goodness.  With this idea in the fore, compassion and loving-kindness become easier to manifest in action and intention.  There is no us and them, there is only us, and we all have Buddha nature.  Christians, by contrast, unite all of humanity with its departure from perfect goodness.  Humans, by choice, are not perfectly good.  Every being, save one, has chosen departure from perfect goodness.  Whether one holds to the Fall as a past event or something that happens in every human heart, the bottom line remains that humans, in actuality, are flawed beings.  So loving one's neighbor as one self becomes a bit harder when one knows his/her neighbor is, in actuality, a broken being.  I will omit the embarrassing list of atrocities that has taken place due to regarding one's neighbor as actually flawed, but suffice it to say, the concept of “us” and “them” has killed many people.  Christianity has elevated actual imperfectness over potential perfectness, and highlighted volitional rebellion over natural goodness.  In short, Christianity tends to  forget that all beings are made in the image of God.  Hopefully, by taking on the Buddhist dimension and focus on innate Buddhahood, Christianity can make the long overdue move from obsession with sin to development of Imago Dei.  This is a much needed centering.  I speak from a much less informed position when I turn to the centering need for Buddhism.  However, I sense that there may be the need for Buddhists to be more cognizant of the fact that most sentient beings have not reached Buddhahood.  Where as original sin may be too harsh, original ignorance may be too lenient.  Future Buddhas can still be present despots.  A point that finds more traction when viewed from the aspect of justice. 

Concerning the valuation of justice, I would like “faith and works” to make the acquaintance of “intention and action.”  In this respect I feel like it is the Buddhists who have the tougher journey to the center.  If Christianity offers any indication, this will be a difficult journey (one that actually tore the Church asunder).  Christianity has found faith and works to operate on two levels; theory and practice.  In theory, and in scripture, these two entities are addressed separately, but recognized as inseparable.  St Paul declares that, “we have been justified through faith,” (Rom 5:1) yet St James reminds us that, “faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.” (James 2:17).  The Christian canon has declared both of these writings true.  Faith without works is not faith at all, yet works without faith are just empty movements.  Christianity must live in tension according to both of these theoretical truths. 

Practically speaking, earthly living in tension is tough business.  The whole of Christian history is awash with the ebb and flow of undue primacy given to either faith or works.  The ancient church relied solely on the intention of the heart and individual honesty to determine church membership and readmittance to the table post sin.  Practically, this meant liars sat in the pews while the truthful slept at the church doors.  Recognizing that short of mind reading church leaders had no real way to evaluate sincere repentance, the move was made to link sincerity with action.  The truly repentant demonstrated repentance.  And so the pendulum swung towards "works,"  finding its apogee in the medieval penitential system.  This predominantly works-based system reduced Christianity to a perverted economic system, yoking the spiritual to the material in a most abominable way.  Erasmus recognized the disastrous results of this overemphasis of works and attempted a re-centering dialogue that only found an audience when Martin Luther and the German princes moved to action.  Luther advanced quickly through the center before moving the pendulum almost 180 degrees with his declaration of solas fidelis (faith alone).  Of course, this line of thought reinforced the German feudal system, led to the suicide/genocide of the Anabaptists and, taken to its logical conclusion, ends in double predestination (Calvin's Institutes, Book 3).  In practice, Christians learned that justice according to faith alone, in the hands of humans, became a justification for all kinds of atrocities (crusades, inquisitions, imperialism).  For people who thoroughly understand faithfulness like St Paul, "all things are lawful," (1 Cor 10:23) but Christianity has discovered that most humans are more like Corinthians and less like St Paul.  Conversely, a system based solely on works undermines the core of Christianity, and reduces salvation to the domain of the material rich.  

To this day there still is no proper balance between faith and works with respect to earthly justice.  The best Christianity has come up with is the separation of church and state.  Augustine posited two cities, Charlemagne benefited from two swords, and most modern Christians recognize a distinction between divine and human justice.  God will judge according to the intentions of one's heart, but in order for society to function, humans must judge according to one’s actions.  The result is the Christian idea of not being “of the world”, but being “in the world.”  An imperfect solution to be sure, but the best that can be managed to date.  Christians have painfully learned the following: 

There is no democracy in theocracy.

The separation of church and state is done not so much to protect the integrity of the state, but to preserve the purity of the Church.

Christendom is not the same as the Kingdom of Heaven.  

During our classes and in our readings over the last few weeks, I have come to believe that Buddhist theory heavily favors intention over action.  Karma is dictated by intention alone, and there seems to be a distinct lack of a St James in the Buddhist tradition.  I have yet to hear of a lama who pointed out the fact that intention, by definition, presupposes a following action.  While I have recognized that Buddhists encourage generosity and virtuous actions, I have also noticed the secondary status given to these actions.  It seems to me that where Christians hold the relationship between faith and works as integral, Buddhists hold the relationship between intention and action as product and byproduct.  Theoretically it seems that Buddhist intention can exist apart from action. 

The practical application of this theory tends toward disaster in human society.  When intention alone is coupled with a karmatic system that insists justice can, and does, ripen beyond this lifetime, the resulting earthly government can be justified in any action.  If bodhisattvas can be butchers, what prevents the Tibetan head of state from being one?  The feudal or caste system seems to be the logical end to this thinking.  One's past life determines one's birth, and those born to power were meant to be there.  Can Tibetan Buddhism afford to be linked to even an unofficially caste-driven government?  I believe Tibetan Buddhism has had the luxury and privilege of living free of political association and responsibility in a modern historical sense.  If the current Dalai Lama is successful, a Tibetan Buddhist state will come into being.  When that day comes I hope Tibetan Buddhists are able to learn from the mistakes of Christianity, both in favoring intention or action too heavily here in the human realm, but especially in linking the Sangha to a nation.

I believe with respects to a composite middle, the person who spends all day crying on a river bank, feeling compassion for all beings without ever doing something about the suffering is as useless as the person who serves the poor 24/7/365 while hating everyone he/she serves.  In this re-centering process, Buddhists can help remind Christians that capitalism is not Christianity, and Christians can remind Buddhists that good intentions without good actions are not good at all.   

I now come to the issue where the new middle moves the farthest for both traditions...epistemology.  Concerning the nature of knowledge, Christians heavily favor the investigation of the external, while Buddhists turn their exploration inwards.  Both traditions have pursued their respective paths to the severe detriment of the "other" option.  What started for Christians as exploring creation to understand God has ended in materialism and the death of God.  For Buddhists, I sense, that what started as exploring the mind's relationship to the world has ended in mind-only and complete denial of the conventional.  To borrow the Buddhist analogy, Buddhists opened their eyes and saw the ground covered with thorns in front of them.  Only two options occurred to them, cover their feet with leather or cover the world with leather.  They quickly deduced the former would be much easier, and set out to find a goat.  Christians too opened their eyes and saw nothing but thorns in front of them.  Only two options occurred to them as well, find a way to get rid of the thorns or go to a place where there were no thorns.  So they set off in search of a thornless land and created thornology.  As both groups are discovering, the world is not all thorns, bare feet are always sensitive, and neither sandals nor weed killer completely remedies the situation.  My point is that the most skillful response involves addressing both the external and the internal; landscaping and hiking boots,.

The Buddhist philosophy of science is impressive, but the Buddhist knowledge of science is medieval.  For the most part, correlation is still causation, repeatability is unimportant and the paranormal is incontrovertible proof.  The Buddhist khempo can use quantum physics to justify emptiness, but I strongly doubt he can do the math for even high-end Newtonian physics.  In short, putting a man on the moon for Christians is good science, for Buddhists, it is sorcery.  The good news is that science has found Buddhism, and for the most part, Buddhists have incorporated it into their worldview.  The path to the middle for Buddhists is long, but much of the trail has been cleared.  Science is a corporate entity, and what took the West 500 years to develop can be assimilated in a single lifetime.  Science is a function of amassing data, where introspection is a function of amassing experience.  The former is much easier to transfer than the latter. 

Christian theology posses an adequate framework for introspection, but Christian knowledge of introspection is medieval.  The last Christians to practice introspection, as primary, lived 500 years ago (St John of the Cross, Teresa of Avila, Julian of Norwich).  For contemporary Christians, the mind is purely material, consciousness does not affect matter and anything that cannot be explained by science must be untrue.  Benny Hinn can cure cancer with "the spirit," but I strongly doubt he has the meditative concentration to raise his body temperature a single degree.  In short, remaining in a meditative position, free of decay, for seven days after death, is for Buddhists good introspective practice, for Christians, it is charlatanism.  Science has come to Buddhism quicker and more successfully than introspection has come to Christianity.  The field of medicine (particularly psychology, psychiatry and neuroscience) has begun to realize introspection as a legitimate and successful methodology for healing.  Contemplative Christian practices have started to resurface, and mindfulness meditation groups have gained popularity for therapeutic reasons.  Yet the majority of the Christian population seems uninterested and unconvinced of the truth and value of introspection.  Additionally, introspection is individually tailored and realized.  So while Buddhism can offer Christians methods and instruction, the fact remains that each Christian needs to take the time to find his/her correct path.  Introspection is a system understood to take lifetimeS, and it is much harder to incorporate into a system dominated by the word lifetime.  Nonetheless, the value of introspection cannot be denied, and Christianity would be better for developing this internal science under the experienced tutelage of Buddhism. 

A new, composite middle lies somewhere between the y-axis’s science and the x-axis’s introspection.  However, in the end, all the talk of coordinate systems and geometric analogies is hugely oversimplified.  Our composite existence is made up of innumerable dimensions, but I believe that my theory is sound.  With each new dimension recognized, the middle will change, and those self-attaching to any “Middle Way” should change with it.  The idea I am positing is for each tradition to recognize truths in other traditions and adjust accordingly. However, centering is not syncretism.  We are all somewhere on an axis, and we will all see the composite middle from a relative stance.   I staunchly believe that a person cannot genuinely hold to both the vows of baptism and the vows of refuge.  I do not want to be a Buddhist, I want to be a better Christian, and I suspect the same sentiments from my friends on the x-axis.  The goal is to move ever closer to a composite middle, but we all must recognize that the sites along the Way of the Cross will be a little different from the vistas on the Path of Bodhisattva.[3] 

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[1] D=square root(1^2 + 1^2).  Just a friendly reminder of how to find the hypotenuse of a triangle.

[2] Buddhists wouldn’t limit this idea merely to humans, but bringing all sentient beings in to this equation at this point would just muddle things.

[3] Of course, this entire paper could just be me obsessing over subject/object relationships.  I recognize that “the middle” could be, by definition, the starting point, which establishes the poles.  This primacy of the relation over the relaters is probably truer to the Buddhist idea of interdependent origination, but I find this concept beyond my logical skills to extrapolate into Christianity and a composite worldview.  Perhaps after a little more study and retreat, I’ll be better suited for a paper from this perspective.  Till then I’ll live with “clowns to the left of me and jokers to the right.  Here I am, stuck in the middle with you.”